Azalea gets overhauled after long public process

A plan for the newly updated Azalea Park shows rearranged amenities and a new parking layout. (City Parks Department)

How does a park grow? Many in the Fry’s Spring neighborhood can now count the ways.
After years of community input, planning, and grant-seeking, a series of improvements to Azalea Park is now under way, one of several major updates financed in part by a steady uptick in the parks and recreation department’s budget in recent years.

The $900,000 improvement process began in 2009, when the city solicited community input for a redesign plan for the 23-acre park, which borders I-64 in the southwest corner of the city. The changes proposed and now being implemented hit on a number of practical desires identified by locals, said city park and trail planner Chris Gensic.

The most noticeable change involves an amenities shuffle. Parking and play areas are currently deep in the park and relatively far from the entrance. Some families wanted to see both brought nearer to the main gate, Gensic said, so the city is swapping the playground and the fenced dog park, which will nearly double in size to include two large enclosures. Basketball courts will move up to a spot alongside the new parking lot, and a structure near the park’s reoriented softball diamond that currently serves as a concession stand will become restrooms. A picnic shelter adjacent to the new playground will house concessions.
The updates will take about two years to complete, said Gensic, but public works is already breaking ground on several projects.

The city is funding the bulk of the project, providing $750,000 over two years from a parks budget that has climbed from $7.9 million in FY 2010-2011 to $9.4 million in the current fiscal year.

But the parks department looked elsewhere to pay for other key updates. A Department of Forestry grant is covering the cost of a wooded rain garden near the parking lot, Gensic said. Matching grants will help build a new paved trail into the park from Azalea Drive, like the one that connects to Monte Vista Avenue, and more trails will formalize the paths park-goers currently use to access Moore’s Creek. A new gate and spruced-up entry come courtesy of funds diverted from the Old Lynchburg Road project.

In many ways, Azalea, which was acquired by the city in 1965, is typical of Charlottesville’s neighborhood parks, Gensic said—a remnant from a wave of mid-century development.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, “people came in and subdivided old farms, built a bunch of houses and gave the city the pieces at the bottom,” he said. That was the case with Azalea, which was cropland for many years, and still borders a farm that lies just across the county line.

Often the donated land was boggy, flood-prone, and generally unfit for building on. That means that with the exception of McIntire’s big parcels and a smattering of small Downtown greens, “most of our parks are sort of in the backyard of the city,” he said.

The fact that it’s one of several public spaces tacked onto the periphery of the city doesn’t make Azalea any less beloved to those around it. The process of rehabbing it has also inspired one resident to get more actively involved in city business than he ever expected he would.

Brian Becker moved to the neighborhood in 2009, just as plans for the new Azalea Park were coming together. A parent of young kids who loved the park, he found himself closely involved in the process of plotting the improvements.

“I never really had an interest in government from a political perspective,” he said, but the park inspired him to dive in and learn what he could. He joined the city’s Neighborhood Leadership Institute, getting a crash course in local government through weekly evening sessions. He’s become the voice of the Fry’s Spring Neighborhood Association during the park planning process, relaying residents’ ideas and concerns to the parks department and bringing his neighbors news of the latest updates.

“We’re lucky to have a very active neighborhood association here, in a very large and active part of the city,” Becker said. The flip side is that there are a number of voices all trying to bend the ear of park planners. It helped to streamline communication.

“This is a tiered process,” he said. “It took a long time, and it was good to have someone who can speak to other members of the community.”

Let’s just go ahead and get the obligatory warning out of the way: Don’t do illegal stuff. But we know that some of you will, and when you encounter police, at least be aware of your rights so you don’t get yourself in more trouble than you’re already in. For legal advice, we consulted attorney

What’s it like to be a teenager in 2018? We figured nobody’s better plugged in than newspaper editors, so we checked in with the editors at Charlottesville High and Western Albemarle, as well as a CHS junior. Here’s what we learned about the differences between city and county schools—and what

Mental health focus Lucas Johnson isn’t old enough to vote yet, but the 17-year-old Monticello High senior and his peers from two other county high schools—Choetsow Tenzin at Albemarle and Alex Moreno at Western Albemarle—didn’t let that stop them from demanding the General Assembly support

There aren’t many places to skateboard in Charlottesville. The city closed its skate park on McIntire Road during construction of the U.S. 250 Bypass and John Warner Parkway interchange in 2012 and moved it to McIntire Park. And last month, it closed the second location, too. Nineteen-year-old

Young people in Parkland, Florida, are dealing with an unspeakable act that killed 17 people and destroyed countless lives and feelings of safety in their daily routines, much like what students in Charlottesville had to cope with at the beginning of the school year after the August 12 white

Patrick Clancy, his brother Ryan and nine other teens went to an 8am soccer practice at Monticello High School on an artificial turf field July 21, the second day of a National Weather Service heat advisory. The two-hour practice ended around 10am, when the heat advisory officially kicked in.

By Mary Jane Gore A fire along Old Three Notch’d Road caused a rush hour roadblock February 1 on one of Crozet’s main thoroughfares: Three Notch’d Road, aka Route 240. Instead of being able to drive to downtown Crozet, drivers had to make a U-turn, return to U.S. 250 and make a right, then

New research shows that all 50 states can legally restrict private militia and paramilitary activity at events such as the summer’s deadly Unite the Right rally, according to the University of Georgetown Law School’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. The legal organization,

We’re No. 1 Despite Saturday’s overtime loss at JPJ to Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia men’s basketball team was ranked No. 1 in Monday’s Associated Press Top 25 for the first time in more than 35 years. The Hoos (23-2) also became the first ACC team to make it to No. 1 after starting

When Mayor Nikuyah Walker chaired her first City Council meeting February 5, citizens got to see how previously out-of-control meetings would be run under a new regime—and learned that the heckling continues both for councilors and for the West2nd developer seeking a special use permit that

Bill Mawyer often asks a question that few can answer: Do you know where your water comes from? “Frequently in our business, people are shocked by the amount of time and money it takes to maintain a reliable water system,” says Mawyer, executive director of the Rivanna Water and Sewer

As the General Assembly finished its fourth week in this year’s session, most of the 3,000 or so bills legislators filed will die in subcommittee, but some are inching toward the governor’s desk for signature into law. Killed bills: Danger zone After a bill to ban the devices used in the Las

Over the weekend, unknown persons three times did what plaintiffs in a lawsuit against City Council want done: removed the tarps covering statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Almost exactly a year after City Council voted 3-2 to remove the statues on February 6,

When Jason Kessler leaves a courthouse in Charlottesville, he’s usually greeted the same way, and that’s by an angry mob. A group of dozens of anti-racists followed him in a large circle around Market Street until he receded to the police department next to the general district court. He exited

When it comes to chronic diseases, local health care providers and researchers are emerging as key players and national innovators. And they’re using familiar tools—smartphones and apps—to provide customized care for patients and their families.

Another high-profile case went through Albemarle County Circuit Court on January 31, where motions for a self-proclaimed racist who found himself in trouble after the weekend of the Unite the Right rally had two motions denied and one granted. Christopher Cantwell is accused of using a

An Amtrak train carrying GOP congressmen bound for the The Greenbrier resort in West Virginia hit a garbage truck at Lanetown Road in Crozet around 11:20am today. One person is reported dead, according to NBC29, and UVA says three people have been transported to its hospital, one in critical

Ahead of Super Bowl LII, we’re looking back at Charlottesville’s connection to modern football. And in case you haven’t heard—it’s pretty monumental. Named after Dr. William Lambeth, who’s known widely as the University of Virginia’s “father of athletics,” Lambeth Field was constructed at the

After Charlottesville earned the dubious distinction of having the most expensive health insurance premiums in the country, some of the area residents who couldn’t afford to pay $3,000 a month formed Charlottesville for Reasonable Health Insurance and retained a lawyer who’s made a career out

It’s Girl Scout cookie season Good luck getting around town without encountering a wide-eyed girl at a cookie booth who wants to sell you one box of each flavor. How could you say no? For the past two weekends, girls have set up shop at dozens of locations around town. To get the scoop on this